


the human spark

by labicheramure



Series: Hatchling [1]
Category: Kamen Rider OOO
Genre: Ending Fix, M/M, kamen rider ooo ending spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-16
Updated: 2014-06-16
Packaged: 2018-02-04 22:51:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1796158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/labicheramure/pseuds/labicheramure
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>His first sensation, both then and now, was pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the human spark

His first sensation, both then and now, was pain. 

  
The removal of that first medal was a wound that would define the rest of his life; the agony of being rendered suddenly and cruelly incomplete. The hunger that followed that was terrible, a precise hollowing-out, so deep that it would be a long time before he was even aware of it. The only thing he knew, then, was that he could not rest with this feeling surging through him.

  
Now, taking his first, shaky breath, Ankh was hungry again, but in a more bearable way, somehow. His body, his self had expanded from a tiny point, became a heavy, full thing, with bones that had solid red insides, a chest full of heart and lungs. For several blank moments, he was aware of all of this, aware of every moving, living cell of this new body of his. Each one cried out for the fulfillment that had so long been denied him, and his last thought, before sleeping again, was that this was something he could actually give them.   
   
\-------   
  
"My God, that call was right, Satonaka! You have to see this!" 

  
  
"That's him, alright. Let the President know. Someone get a blanket from the van." 

  
A gloved hand. Warm. Strength that had held him up so many times. 

  
"Eiji?" 

  
  
The hand flinched away. Not Eiji. 

  
  
"He's awake. What do we do?" 

  
  
His eyes opened. Too bright, and not from the sun.   
  
"Where's Eiji...?"

 

  
\-------

 

Ankh woke a third time with more lucidity than before, the world sharp and heavy around him. It was a little darker now, lamp lit instead of fluorescent. An old heating unit made noise over his head, warmth settling over him like the white blanket he was wrapped up in. His right arm lay quiet across it, a delicate tube running from the crook of his elbow to a clear bag next to the bed. Hospital, his senses finally provided. He was in a hospital.

 

"Hey there," said Hina, getting up from a chair to lean over him, a bright, gentle smile on her face. Her hand curled around his wrist, and, to his surprise, he let it stay there. "How're you feeling?"

 

"Dunno." Ankh tried to sit up, but a rush of dizziness brought him back down immediately. He grimaced. "Where's Eiji?"

 

"He went back home to get you some clothes. The doctor said you'd probably wake up soon, so he wanted to be ready." She frowned. "For right now, though, you should be still."

 

He couldn't really do anything else. His legs barely twitched at his orders, and trying to curl up his arm brought a sharp pain in his elbow. It was a weakness much like the times he was low on medals, a distance from his own body so great that he might as well not even have it. This was different, more of a sleepy ache than the stabbing pain of releasing medals. Slowly, Ankh managed to roll over on his side to face Hina, who took that as an invitation to brush his hair back from his forehead. Her fingertips were cool and soft.

 

"Just because I look pathetic right now doesn't mean you can do that," he mumbled, half against his own shoulder. She tucked a lock of hair behind his ear. This close, he could see the damp clumps of her lashes, the way her smile trembled, just a bit.

 

"I'm sorry." She pulled back, swallowing audibly and wiping at her eyes with the corner of his blanket. "I guess I just... had to know you were real. I even called Shingo earlier, to make sure he was somewhere else. Stupid, huh?"

 

"Yeah." His eyes felt hot. He pressed his face into the pillow, felt it become wet. "It is."

 

\-------

 

Eiji returned not long after, breaking the silence in that bright, explosive way of his. The grin he gave on seeing Ankh awake was enough to dig up every deep buried ache, every built up cry he tried and failed to give as a broken medal, left with barely a mind, much less a mouth. It took up the last of his tattered pride to stop himself from releasing it now, to remind himself that this was his body, that, for once, he had time. Eiji must have seen it anyway, because the grin fell right away, replaced by the familiar face of someone who knew he'd upset someone but had no idea how.

 

"Took you long enough," Ankh said, finally managing to pull himself up into a sitting position. Hina gave him a reproachful look. "How long were you expecting me to wear this stupid dress?"

 

"I missed you too, Ankh." But Eiji was smiling again. "About the gown... I maybe got a little overeager. I just talked to the doctor and he says your blood sugar's still really low. He wants to get some real food in you and keep you overnight to make sure it's not something else."

 

Ankh clicked his tongue, sliding back against his pillow. Feeling the sting of his jostled arm-tube, he remembered something.

 

"Hey..." He looked back up at Eiji, slowly. "Why am I here?" Eiji and Hina went quiet, watching him carefully.

 

"What do you mean?"

 

"You know what I mean," he said sharply, forcing his half-numb body to sit back up. He took a deep breath. "Don't make me say it, okay?"

 

"Ah, that," Eiji said, smiling with a helpless kind of look. "We don't know, to be honest. All I know is yesterday I lost one half of your medal at the airport - "

 

" - And the Foundation got a call about someone who looks like you this morning," Hina added quickly, noticing the look on Ankh's face, probably. "You were in a bathroom at the same airport."

 

"What about the medal?"

 

"The Foundation's had people looking all day, but we haven't heard if they found it."

 

"I still have the other half." Eiji reached into his pocket, pulling out a pair of garish underwear before he found the familiar glinting, translucent little thing. He pressed it into Ankh's hand, looking at him expectantly. Ankh let his fingers curl tight around it, trying to take it back into himself. It felt so light. The jagged edge was worn smooth from handling, the lines of the hawk's wings shining with bits of sand. He began to laugh, sounding distant and wild even to himself.

 

"Ankh?" Eiji's hand was a soft weight on his shoulder. Through it, Ankh felt himself shaking.

 

"Don't you see?" he said, holding the medal out to them both, palms turned up like a child's. "It won't go in. I don't need it anymore."

 

\-------

 

The next few hours passed by in a warm, pleasant blur. Hina and Eiji took turn recounting the last nine months to him, sometimes pausing to argue about which country Date was in right now, or the name of the new Chinese dumpling Cous Coussier was serving. Hina told him about Gotou returning to the police force; apparently he was partners with Shingo now. Eiji told him about the places he'd gone, the new foods he ate, the vast sky whose stars he learned to name and trace. Idle, meaningless chatter, the kind he used to filter out.

 

Now, he hung on to every word.

 

"Ah," said Hina, some twenty minutes after the light behind the curtains had dimmed to grey. "Gotou's coming to dinner tonight! I even got the steaks down from the freezer. Ankh, do you mind if I run home to put them back up?"

 

"They're already thawed, right?" Ankh waved to the door. "Go ahead and have your dinner. Maybe Eiji won't talk as much with you gone."

 

"Ankh!" But Hina smiled, bright and sweet.

 

"Thank you. Call me if anything happens, okay? I'll be back first thing in the morning."

 

Eiji  _was_  quieter after she left, content to sit with Ankh in companionable silence while he settled back against the pillows, exhaustion and pleasant warmth catching up with him, making his eyes heavier than they ought to be. He reached for Eiji, tugging on the corner of his sleeve.

 

"Get me an ice pop." Eiji smiled, gently pulling Ankh's hand off him and placing it back on the bed. His hands were large, and warm.

 

"Nope. Dinner should be coming soon, and you're supposed to be eating real food anyway. No ice until you come home." Ankh buried his face in the pillow, grumbling incoherently. He was so tired he couldn't even get up the energy to complain properly. He was almost asleep when a terse knock made him start. "See, there it is now."

 

It was not dinner. Instead, Satonaka Erika came strolling in, carrying a box of cake with a tablet on top of it, the familiar, obnoxious face of Kougami's president filling the screen. Slung across her arm was a large gift bag printed with peacock feathers.

 

"Happy Birthday!" said the tablet. Eiji jumped. Ankh put his blanket over his head.

 

"Go away."

 

"The bag has a tablet in it," Satonaka said, sliding the tablet off the box to rest it on the foot of his bed. "And a new phone. It's red."

 

"Ooh, neat!" Eiji was already reaching in to pull the boxes out. "Ankh, they got you a tablet case, too!" Ankh rolled his eyes. He knew better than to trust Kougami when he was giving him cake  _and_  gifts.

 

"What do you want?"

 

"Just to congratulate you on your resurrection!" Kougami said. "Which, by the way, was completely unexpected. Reviving from nothing but half a medal, with nothing given to you... it's a miracle, to be quite honest. It defies the law of conservation of mass!"

 

"So?" Ankh didn't know what that was, but he didn't like the bright, manic look in Kougami's eye. It was a little too familiar, its meaning too unsettlingly clear, in light of what Eiji became, in those final days. "I don't really care how it happened, as long as I'm here."

 

Kougami laughed. "It's that kind of thinking that gave you the power to create that body, I think. Your very existence had limitations built into it, but you reached beyond it until you could grasp the life you desired." His grin grew wider. "If Eiji was a vessel, then you, Ankh, are a fountain of greed. It's magnificent!"

 

A fountain. Ankh tried to feel that word, to put it to what he remembered and make sense of them both. Wanting from inside the medal was like drowning from his own bile. It hurt so much that he couldn't even think, only press himself against whatever warmth he felt from the outside, which in turn built up his wanting, more and more. He wanted to feel nothing but that warmth, to take it, and everything else, all for himself. It was a Greed's desire, but, if Kougami was right, it had made him human.

 

"Ah, Mr. President?" Eiji said, his polite tone in sharp, violent contrast with the look on his face. "That's all very interesting, and I'm sure Ankh likes his gifts, but it's getting a little late. I think you should leave for tonight."

 

"It's only eight," said Satonaka.

 

"I said - " Eiji stood up, slowly " - I think you should leave for the night. Sir."

 

Ankh caught Kougami smiling, mad and secret, before the tablet turned off on its own. Barely looking up from her phone, Satonaka took it up and slipped it into her briefcase. As she stood in the doorway, though, she put the phone away, turning to give Eiji a strange smile.

 

"Don't mess this up, okay, Hino?"

 

"Ah, okay."

 

"What'd she mean by that?" Ankh asked, after she left.

 

"No idea."

 


End file.
